Boys and Girls of America

I have seen how we grow cross eyed in classrooms

and am concerned with how little most of us

grin when we kiss. Where are the ones we left

in backseats of our mother's station wagons

fumbling for the braclasp of the world?

Please touch one another more.

In exceptionally public and overcrowded places,

demonstrate that affections exist that are beyond

the scope of our control. I will not be offended

by your tactlessness. It does not matter to me

if you are unattractive. My heart has been beating

at a concerning rate since Sunday, but I believe

that the way it touches the roof of my ribcage

is affectionate so I am keeping myself on this diet

of coffee and nicotine. If I have a stroke,

please call my mother.

Ladies and gentleman, I am ill suited to the bluelight

of the television and its thick film of noise.

My yelling days have passed and now the only place

I am interested in being loud is bed. I am not embarrassed to admit

that I still have faith in poetry and its quietude,

the manner in which it compels me to stop for

a moment and admire its self-certainty

like a pretty thing in heels

whose pendulum sway somehow distills

the screeching motion of the world.

Most of us have been writing about a feeling that can

only be communicated through the touching of lips, but

after a long day I still want someone to read to me as

much as I want sex and a glass of whiskey.

Boys and girls of America, there is nothing

unstylish about being genuine. I had

two drinks before writing this because I find

the idea of your judgment terrifying. Still,

I want the best for all of us. If I had your names

in my address book, you, collectively, would be

the first on my dinner party invitation lists.

I spend most of my time alone wishing to be disarmed

by your honesty.